I was still shelving forbidden theology at midnight when the storm turned Saint Margaret's Academy into a black shape on a blacker sea.
I should have left the abandoned stacks alone.
Instead, I pressed the wrong brass cherub on a shelf of worm-eaten theology and fell through the floor with a mouth full of dust and a bleeding palm.
The chamber beneath the library was older than the school. Older than the island, maybe.
At its center rested a coffin made of blue ice, chained shut with silver and prayer-script.
Inside lay a boy beautiful enough to make fear feel impolite.
My blood dripped onto the lock.
Every chain snapped.
His red eyes opened, and a cold hand closed around my throat before I could scream.
"You woke me," he whispered, then paused as my blood scent reached him. "My sacrifice."